Kitabı oku: «A Virginia Girl in the Civil War, 1861-1865», sayfa 7

“Ah, that I don’t know. Captain Locke advised me to consult you.”

The tailor, who seemed to have had a liberal experience in such matters, considered for a moment.

“Are other ladies going with you?”

“My mother.”

“It is easy then. I will cut this cloth into lengths that will be all right for the tailor who makes the uniform. You and your mother can make it into two Balmoral skirts. That’s the way you get your cloth home. Now for the buttons and gold lace. Will you travel in the wrap you have on?”

“In one like it; I shall pack this in my trunk. The inspectors will not be so likely to condemn this if they find it in a trunk as they would be to condemn a new one. So I will get a new cloak South; mother will wear another.”

“I see.” He was impressed with the scheme and made a mental note of it. “Send me your cloaks and I’ll fix the buttons all right.”

Cloaks of the period were long, sacque-like affairs, double-breasted and with two rows of buttons. The tailor changed the buttons on our cloaks for Confederate brass buttons covered with wadding, and then with cloth like the wrap. The gold lace was to be folded flat and smooth. Mother was to rip the lining from the bottom of her satchel, lay the lace on the bottom, and carefully paste the lining back. We wanted to take Dan some flannel shirts, and again fashion favored us. Ladies wore wide plaid scarfs passed around their necks and falling in long ends in front. We got seven yards of fine soft flannel in a stylish plaid and cut it in two lengths. Mother, being quite tall, could wear a longer scarf than myself, so, between us, we managed to carry around our necks two good shirts for Dan.

CHAPTER XVI
THE FLOWER OF CHIVALRY

In the meantime we were growing more and more uneasy about Captain Locke. We felt that he was suspected and covertly watched, but he laughed at our fears.

He and I had begun to discuss ways and means of getting back to Virginia. One day, as usual, he was sitting beside me in the parlor after dinner, and, as usual, we were talking together in low tones, and again, as usual, the parlors were full. At one end of the room sat Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple, honoring us now and then with the covert and curious observation to which I could never become hardened. Captain Hosmer was walking restlessly up and down the floor, and casting uneasy glances toward us. He was too much of a gentleman to catechize me about my friend, but I knew he was not only curious but concerned in regard to my intimacy with Captain Locke.

Captain Locke was saying to me that he was in favor of our taking some schooner going down the bay and landing somewhere in Gloucester County, when I became so painfully conscious that the eyes of the enemy were upon us that I could not attend to what he was saying.

“What is the matter with you?” he asked. “You are not thinking at all of what I am saying. I reckon your mind is on Dan Grey.”

“I am thinking about you,” I said, on the verge of tears. “If you are not more careful, you won’t get back home at all, I’m afraid.”

“Why?” he asked innocently, and as if he were the most prudent person in the world.

“Only what Milicent and I have been telling you all along. You come here openly and boldly in the presence of all these Yankees. You visit us, and we feel responsible for any misfortune that might come to you through it. It is well known now, I think, by everybody in the house that we are Southerners and blockade-runners. No one in the house except ourselves and Mrs. Harris knows who you really are. Don’t you suppose people wonder?”

He had been introduced several times to ladies as Mr. Moore, but we had not introduced him generally. We did not know what to do with him. For ourselves, we felt safe by this time, but I never sat on that sofa by Captain Locke’s side without the fear in my heart that a sergeant-at-arms might walk in and lay hands on his shoulder.

“Don’t you see,” I went on, “how Captain Hosmer is watching you?”

For Hosmer was watching him with a scrutiny which could be felt in spite of all his courteous efforts at concealment. “And can’t you see with what suspicious looks those officers across the room regard you?”

“That’s so. You must introduce me to some of these people.”

I was dumfounded. So this was the result of my caution!

“By which of your names shall I call you?” I asked satirically, but the satire was lost on him.

“The last one. That is a good name. It is nearly as common as Smith. Besides, I really have a right to it. I came by it honestly. I have a friend in New York by that name and he has kindly lent it to me for emergencies. So if anybody wants to write or telegraph to New York about it, they will find me all right. My cousin in New York – who really is my cousin many degrees removed – will acknowledge me. He is well known in business circles there.”

“Whom shall I introduce you to?”

“I would rather meet those officers.”

“Good gracious!”

He smiled. “They can give me more, and more accurate, information than anybody else, and of just the kind I want.”

“You are going to get yourself shot before you start home. I won’t be responsible for you.”

“They don’t shoot spies – they hang ’em,” he said cheerfully.

I believe his cheerful ease carried us safely through this conversation under the eyes of the enemy, as it had done before.

“Those gentlemen would hardly think me entitled to the courtesy of a bullet,” he went on with the utmost sang-froid. “A rope is more in accordance with my expectations if I am caught. But I do not expect to be caught. Really, little madam, the frank and open plan is the best. If I were to visit you clandestinely it would create more suspicion. Don’t you see the fact that you haven’t presented me to those gentlemen is in itself suspicious? Call those officers up and do the honors.”

“I will call Captain Hosmer,” I said faintly. “I really haven’t the nerve to summon the other two. – Captain Hosmer!” I called.

He came instantly, and I saw that he was glad to be called.

“Captain Hosmer, let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Moore.”

“Mr. Moore” rose, and the two gentlemen bowed and shook hands with each other. Then they sat down, the Federal captain on one side of me, the rebel captain on the other, and we had a pleasant chat. Captain Hosmer asked “Mr. Moore” if he was related to Henry P. Moore, of New York, and “Mr. Moore” replied in the affirmative. Captain Hosmer knew this gentleman very well. Captain Locke was introduced to Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple, and it ended by Captain Locke and Schenck’s adjutant walking down the street together. Captain Hosmer and I watched them from the window as they strolled past, smoking their cigars.

“Your friend is a very handsome man,” he said.

“You think so? Dan is ever so much handsomer.”

“No doubt of it,” he laughed.

The next day I said to Captain Locke: “You – you wouldn’t have to use information received from these gentlemen in any way that might ever hurt them, would you? We wouldn’t have to do that, would we?”

“Dear little madam, it is not probable that they will honor me with too much confidence. No hurt could ever come to one who is kind to you through me. My first duty is to the South; so is yours. But honor between man and man is honor, and friendship is friendship, even in war times. In my life it has sometimes been very hard to know the line.”

And there rested on his face at this moment the nearest thing to a shadow that I had ever seen there.

“I don’t want you to think I have been reckless of your safety in coming here to see you. I am quite sure of my ground. You are not involved in any of my operations. And if anything were to happen, I have friends here who could extricate you even if they could not save me. The principal thing I wish to find out, now, from your Federal friends here is how you may get back to Virginia safely – since you will go. If I find out that my attendance on you will be to your disadvantage, little madam, we must give that up.”

It was I who had shown most anxiety that we should go together. While we were talking Captain Hosmer came in, and I made room for him on the other side of me. The two men greeted each other cordially. They had taken a liking to each other, and the rebel captain said to the other:

“My friend here has just been consulting me as to the route she had best take in getting home. I suggested that you might advise her to better purpose.”

“I deplore Miss Duncan’s determination to go,” said Captain Hosmer. “Almost any route is unsafe just now – if possible. However, I will be glad to do anything I can. Have you any plan under consideration?”

“Wait a minute, captain,” I said, rising. “I will go and get a little map I have, and show you the route which Mr. Moore advised me to take.”

I went out, leaving the two officers together. When I returned I resumed my seat between them, spread the map open upon my lap, and they bent over it, Federal and Confederate heads touching, while I traced the route with my finger.

“You see, Mr. Moore thinks I might go down the bay in a schooner and land somewhere here in Gloucester County.”

“No! no! you mustn’t go that way!” exclaimed Captain Hosmer quickly. “You are sure to be taken up if you try that. With all due deference to you, Mr. Moore, my knowledge of the position of our forces convinces me that that is impossible.”

“Of course, as an officer in the army, you must be better informed than I am,” Captain Locke said simply. “That is why I advised Miss Duncan to consult you.”

“Your best plan is to go by Harper’s Ferry. It is a difficult matter to get through anywhere now, but if you get to Virginia at all I think it must be by way of Harper’s Ferry.”

Major Brooks and Colonel Whipple joined us, and the matter ended as on the previous day, by Captain Locke and Colonel Whipple walking off down the street together.

“Moore is a splendid fellow,” Captain Hosmer said to me, when we had the sofa to ourselves. “I am glad you introduced us. Your not doing so looked suspicious, and I was troubled for fear he would get you into some scrape or other.”

Dear, generous fellow, how I hated to deceive him, and how it was on the tip of my tongue to tell him who Captain Locke was, until I remembered what his duty would be if I told him! And Captain Locke’s secret was mine to keep. He had been ready to risk his life rather than leave me alone at Berlin! Then, too, poor fellow, he had such a slender chance, I thought, of getting home alive that not even an enemy would care to make it worse. I used to look at his bonnie white throat and shudder.

“God bless you,” he said to me once, “for all your goodness to a poor, lonely, stray fellow! You shouldn’t be afraid for me. You say your ‘Hail Marys’ for me, you know.”

I had been telling him I was afraid for him, and he had, as usual, tried to reassure me and to laugh me out of it. He was never afraid for himself – I believe he would have stood up to be shot with a laugh on his lips. I wonder if he was laughing when they shot him – my dear, brave friend!

In the meantime we had heard that Mr. Holliway had been arrested in West Virginia, was lying in prison somewhere, and that his friends were trying to get him out, and before I left Baltimore we heard that he had died in prison just as an exchange had been arranged.

My return to Virginia was the subject of daily discussions between me and my two captains, and in this way Captain Locke continued to find out ways that he must not go, and eventually that we must not go together. It was he who first said it.

“I should be no earthly good, but a disadvantage to you, little madam. Hosmer is going to see you through this thing all right.”

Then, seeing my downcast look, he went on cheerily: “I’ll get through somehow all right, sooner or later, and we’ll meet in Old Virginia. Don’t bother your dear little head about me.”

Captain Hosmer tried in vain to dissuade me from going. He felt that the journey under present conditions would be uncomfortable and unsafe, and that it was in every way advisable for me to stay where I was. But I was beginning to be very uneasy about Dan. I had heard from him only once since reaching Baltimore. Then his letters came in a batch, and I received them through the kindly agency of Mr. Cridland, British consul at Richmond, who had been my father’s personal friend and frequent guest, and who had dandled a small person named “Nell” on his knee many times. Captain Hosmer still insisted that I must go by Harper’s Ferry if I went at all, and he said that a pass was necessary.

“How on earth am I to get it?” I asked.

“I must arrange that for you,” he said.

I think one reason that Captain Hosmer was so good to me was because his wife was a Southern woman. Her parents were Southern, her brothers were in the Southern army, and her husband was a Federal officer. They loved each other, but somehow they were separated, she living South with her parents. Under the pressure of the times there was a sectional conscience, and people did things which they did not wish to do, because they thought it was right. I don’t know what I should have done then if I had been situated as Mrs. Hosmer was, but I know that at the present time I should stick to Dan, no matter what flag he fought under. Perhaps we are not as great or good in peace as in war times.

The captain had a beautiful country-seat several miles out of town. We had heard much of this place and its old-time hospitalities; and we also heard that it had been virtually closed since Captain Hosmer’s separation from his wife. The captain went there frequently alone, and occasionally with a few friends, but the place had known no festivity since its mistress had gone away on that visit from which, by the way, she returned before we left Baltimore.

But before she came back there was a stag party at the captain’s country place, given in honor of General Fish, the provost marshal at Baltimore, and other prominent officers.

The next time I saw Captain Hosmer he had a smile for me.

“You will get your passes,” he said. “I have spoken to General Fish for them.”

Milicent had decided that she could not risk little Bobby on such a journey and at this season, but mother was to go with me. The day before we were to start she and I went down to General Fish’s office. He was out, but an orderly told us rather rudely to sit down and wait, which invitation or command we humbly acted upon. Presently General Fish entered. We stated our case.

“We are Southerners, general, and we wish to go south by way of Harper’s Ferry.”

“Mrs. and Miss Duncan, I think you said?”

“Yes, general.”

“You are the ladies I heard of from Captain Hosmer, then?”

We gave him a note from Captain Hosmer.

“Excuse me, ladies, while I read this, and I will see what I can do for you.”

He finished the note and then said:

“That’s all right. I will make out your passes, ladies,” and in a few minutes the important papers were in our hands.

“These will take you to General Kelly at Harper’s Ferry. There my power ends. You will find General Kelly courteous and considerate, though I make no promises for him, understand. I will furnish you an escort to Harper’s Ferry, and an officer will be sent to your boarding-house this afternoon to examine your baggage. Your address, please.” He wrote a few words rapidly, and called the orderly:

“Take that order,” he said.

The orderly saluted and got as far as the door, then he turned.

“Do these women go?” he asked of the general.

“These ladies go. Obey my order, sir!”

Upon which the orderly went quickly about his business.

When the officer came to examine our baggage I was on thorns. I had come north intending to make certain purchases, and I had made them, and the fruit of my money and labors was in those two trunks of mother’s and mine. Mother’s trunk was quite a large one, and both of those honest-looking trunks to which I yielded the keys so freely were crammed with dishonest goods – that is, dishonest according to blockade law. I had paid good gold for them, and anxiety enough, Heaven knows, for them to be properly mine.

I had shoes in the bottom of those trunks, and on top of the shoes cloth made into the semblance of female wear and underwear; and, lastly, I had put in genuine every-day garments. There were handkerchiefs, pins, needles, gloves, thread, and all sorts of odds and ends between the folds of garments, here, there, and everywhere in those trunks. They were as contraband trunks as ever crossed into Dixie. But, again, my Yankee was a gentleman.

“This is an unpleasant duty, miss,” he said when I handed him my keys, “but I will disarrange your property as little as possible. It is only a form.”

The orderly lifted the trays and set them back again, scarcely glancing underneath. What a dear, nice Yankee, I thought! He locked the trunks and sealed them.

“Will those seals be broken anywhere, and my trunks examined again?” I asked in some trepidation – this examination was so satisfactory to me that I wanted it to do for one and all.

“I can not tell, miss. They may be at Harper’s Ferry. But I hardly think so. I think this seal will carry you through.”

CHAPTER XVII
PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES

The officer who had examined our trunks the previous day took the trunks to the depot in a wagon, mother and I going in a hack. After we got on the train, our officer, Lieutenant Martin, joined us, and made himself very agreeable. The beginning of that journey was most pleasant. The scenery along the road to Harper’s Ferry is at all times beautiful, and as we drew nearer to the ferry our car ran by the side of the Potomac, so that from one window we looked across the river to the Virginia Heights, and from the other to the Heights of Maryland. It was afternoon and growing dark when we reached Harper’s Ferry.

There we found something like a riot going on, shouting and noises of all sorts, and the town full of drunken soldiers. We were told that there had been fighting in the valley, that the Federals had won, and that the men had just been paid off, and were celebrating victory and enjoying pay and booty in regular soldier fashion. Through this shouting, rowdy mob mother and I passed under our Federal escort to the tavern.

When we reached the tavern, a miserable little place full of drunken soldiers, our kind escort told us that his duty was at an end, and that he must take the return train to Baltimore. I think he hated to leave us under such unsafe circumstances, but he scarcely had time to settle us in the reception-room, shake hands, and catch his train. Here mother and I sat, debating what we should do. Of course, we were extremely anxious to get out of the place. We called a waiter and asked him if he could tell us where we could hire a vehicle to take us a part of our journey, or the whole of it. He knew of nothing that we could get. Then we went out on the porch, disagreeable as this was, and made inquiries of everybody who seemed sober enough to answer, but to no purpose. We could find no way of getting out of Harper’s Ferry that night.

Thoroughly frightened, we asked to be shown to the commanding officer of the place, and were ushered into General Kelly’s office, which, fortunately, was attached to the tavern – really a part of it.

General Kelly rose when we entered, saw us seated, and was as courteous as possible, while we stated the case and asked his advice. He heard us patiently, and was very sympathetic.

“I don’t know what to say, ladies. I have no authority to send you on.”

“Then what will we do, general?”

“I can not say. I can, of course, give you passes, but you will find it impossible to hire anything here to travel in just now. The best you could get would be an ox-cart or a broken-down wagon, and the roads are almost impassable for good strong vehicles. And, besides, it is not safe for you to travel except under military escort, which, as I have said, I have no authority to furnish. There has been a great deal of fighting in the valley, and the roads are lined with stragglers. If you were prisoners now I could put you under escort and send you through our lines easy enough, but as it is I don’t see what I can do.”

We felt inclined to cry.

“And this is not a fit place for you to spend the night in, as you can see for yourselves,” he pursued, very much in the manner of a Job’s comforter. “The tavern is thronged with drunken men, and the whole town is overrun with them.”

“Would it not be best for us to return to Baltimore?” we asked humbly. We had almost made up our minds to going back.

“That would be best, certainly – if you can.”

“Why, can’t we go back? We had no idea that we wouldn’t be allowed to go back if we wanted to.”

“Well, you see, ladies, you are in the position of Southerners sent south. The policy of the Government encourages the sending of all Southerners in Maryland south to stay. I am only explaining, that you may understand that it may be difficult for me to assist you, in spite of my willingness to do so. I can not send you back without authority from General Fish. I will telegraph to him at once, and do my best for you. My orderly will see you back to the tavern. And I will notify you when I hear from General Fish.”

So we returned to the reception-room of the tavern. Among the groups thronging the tavern were a few graycoats who had been captured the day before. One of these prisoners, a tall, handsome man, walked restlessly up and down the room where we sat, his guard keeping watch on him. As he passed back and forth I looked at him sorrowfully, putting into my eyes all the sympathy and encouragement I dared.

There was something in his look when he returned mine that made me think he wanted to speak to me. Every time he passed I thought I saw his eyes growing more and more wistful under their drooping lids.

Without seeming to notice him I moved about the room until I got to a window which was in the line of his restless beat. I stood there, my back turned to him, apparently looking out of the window, until I disarmed the suspicion of the guard. Then I settled down into a seat, my side to the window, my back to the guard, my face to the prisoner when the turn in his beat brought him toward me. A swift glance showed him that I was on the alert. Not a muscle of his face changed – he was facing the guard – but when he turned and came back, as he passed me he dropped these words.

“Going south?”

He walked to the end of the room and turned. Coming back, he faced me and the guard. As he passed I said:

“Yes.”

When he came back, he said – always with his head drooped and speaking below his breath and so that his lips could hardly be seen to move:

“Take a message?”

When he passed back I said:

“Yes.”

Returning: “Get word to Governor Vance of North Carolina – ”

To the end of his beat, turning and passing again in silence, then as he walked with his back to the guard:

“You saw Charlie Vance here – ”

To the end of beat one way, to the end another, and back again:

“Prisoner – captured in fight yesterday – ”

Several beats back and forth in silence, then:

“Carried north – ”

Again:

“Don’t know where.”

This was the last he had opportunity to say. I saw the orderly coming in. Before Lieutenant Vance was near enough to catch another word from me, the orderly stood before me, a telegram in his hand. It was from General Fish to General Kelly:

“The ladies were sent south at their own request. I decline further connection with the matter.”

“Why – why,” I cried in desperation, “we can’t go south, we can’t go north, and we can’t stay here!”

There was a pert little Yankee in the room who had been watching us for some time. He, like everybody else around us, understood by this time our dilemma.

“I’ll tell you how to get sent on, if you will listen,” he said.

“I will,” I said clearly and firmly, and looking straight into the eyes of Lieutenant Vance, who was then passing close by me.

The little Yankee was staggered by the unnecessary amount of resolution expressed in my reply. I kept my eyes focused on the spot where Mr. Vance had been for some seconds after he had passed. Then I turned to my little Yankee. I had snubbed him severely heretofore, but I was humbled by extremity, and willing enough now to listen if he could tell us how to get away from this place.

“Tell us how we can get sent on,” I asked.

“Just step out there in the street and holler for Jeff Davis, and you’ll get sent on quick enough!”

We withered him with a stare, and then turned our backs on him, and at the same moment two ladies entered the room whom we recognized. They were Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby, whose acquaintance we had made in Baltimore, and they, too, were going south. They explained that they had been in this wretched place since yesterday, and that they were not allowed to return to Baltimore and were unable to go home. They had been out trying to find a conveyance of some sort, but had been able to secure only the promise of an ox-cart, and hearing that we were here had come in to consult with us. During all this time the orderly, whom I had detained, was waiting impatiently. We decided to go with him and make another appeal to General Kelly. Accordingly the whole party filed into General Kelly’s office again.

“What are we to do, general?” I cried out in desperation. “We can’t go back, we can’t go on, and we can’t stay here!”

The kindly general did honor to the stars he wore – he was a gentleman, every inch of him. It happened later that he was captured and held in Libby Prison in Richmond, and I was in Richmond and didn’t know it. I have held a grudge against fate ever since. If I had only known, he would have been reminded by every courtesy that a Southern woman could render of how gratefully his kindness was remembered.

“I hardly hoped for a different answer from General Fish, ladies. The regulations on this point are very stringent. And I can not return you to Baltimore unless you take the oath of allegiance.”

“What?” we asked eagerly.

“If you take the oath of allegiance, I can send you back.”

We decided to do this.

We didn’t know exactly what the oath was, but we thought we could take anything to get us out of our scrape. We told General Kelly we would take it, and we were conducted into another room, which I can only remember as being full of Federal soldiers. We were marched up to a desk where a man began reading the oath to us. It was the famous “ironclad.” We did not wait for him to get through. Without a word each of us turned and marched back into General Kelly’s office, as indignant a set of women as could be found.

He was looking for us – doubtless he knew by previous experience the effect the reading of that oath produced upon Southern women – and he burst out laughing as our procession filed back into his room.

“Why, general,” we began, “we couldn’t take that horrid thing! We are Southerners, and our kinsmen and friends are Southern soldiers.”

“I almost knew you wouldn’t take that oath, ladies, when I sent you there.”

“General,” I said, “this is the most remarkable position I ever knew people to be in – where you can’t go back, and can’t go forward, and can’t stay where you are. I don’t know what you are to do with us, general, unless you hang us to get us out of the way.”

He laughed heartily.

“I must do something a little better than that for you. My orderly will take you back to the tavern, and you will hear from me in an hour.”

We went with Mrs. Drummond and Miss Oglesby to their room. Before the hour was up we were escorted to another interview with General Kelly. The general beamed on us.

“Here is a telegram I received in your absence,” he said, handing it to us:

“Mrs. and Miss Duncan are dear friends of mine. Can you see them through? If not, tell them I will be in Harper’s Ferry to-night. Answer.

“Hosmer.”

“Here is my answer,” said the general:

“Stay where you are. Will see them through all right.

“Kelly.”

“How could he have found out the trouble we were in?” we asked in wonder.

“I don’t know. News of the fighting in the valley and the condition of things here reached Baltimore soon after you left there. Hosmer perhaps got an idea of your situation through General Fish. He may have gone to Fish’s office to inquire. Hosmer is a capital fellow and an old friend of mine. I had about determined on what to do for you before I heard from him, but I thought it would please you to know of his message. I will ask you to return to the tavern, ladies, and exercise a little further patience. You will hear from me soon.”

This time we waited only a little while before an orderly rapped at the door to say that an ambulance was in waiting for us below. We hurried down with him, and in ten minutes were inside the ambulance, and prisoners of the United States.

Behind us into the ambulance stepped a dashing young officer, all brass buttons and gold lace.

“I am Captain Goldsborough,” he said, saluting, “commissioned by General Kelly to attend you.”

Our escort consisted of five soldiers who followed us, sitting in a wagon on our baggage. That afternoon we passed through Charleston, and Captain Goldsborough pointed out to us the house in which John Brown had lived – an ordinary two-story frame house.

As well as I can remember we reached Berryville about nine o’clock. Our ambulance drew up in front of the tavern, and Captain Goldsborough went in to see about getting accommodations for us. He came out quickly and said, “This is no fit place to-night for you, ladies. I am informed that there is an old couple on the hill who may take us in. I hear, too, that they are good Confederates,” he added mischievously. Of course lights were out and everybody asleep when we drove up, but our driver went in and beat on the door until he waked the old people up. They received us kindly, and the old lady got a supper for us of cold meats and slices of loaf bread, butter, milk, preserves, and hot coffee which she must have made herself as no servants were in the house at that hour; and we had a comfortable room with two beds in it. The old lady came in and chatted with us awhile, telling us all she knew about our army’s movements, and listening eagerly to what people in Maryland had to say about the war. We were very tired, but I am sure it must have been one o’clock when we went to sleep. At daybreak there came a great banging at the front door. Mother put her head out of the front window and inquired who was trying to break the door down.